


Until We Meet Again, Diamond of My Mantle

by fresne



Category: Astronomy (Anthropomorfic), Solar System (Anthropomorfic)
Genre: Cat2, Misuse of Science, Other, Podfic, Podfic Available, Podfic Length: 10-20 Minutes, SCIENCE!, Yuletide Treat
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-17
Updated: 2014-05-22
Packaged: 2018-01-05 00:22:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,219
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1087378
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fresne/pseuds/fresne
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It shouldn't have worked.</p><p>It wasn't proper. Uranus knew that a planet should form relationships with moons and not other planets, and ze had moons. Dull proper conversations that provided no enlightenment. They sparked no enrichment in hirs existence.</p><p>But when Uranus aligned with Neptune, Neptune would form these bright spots in hirs upper atmosphere. Ze would say, "Oh, hey, Uranus. You look. Wonderful. Oh, I've missed you so."</p><p>Uranus would spin quietly, trembling with their relative proximity across the vastness of space.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [starduchess](https://archiveofourown.org/users/starduchess/gifts).



Uranus was not a boringly, pedantic, nitpicker. No matter what Earth said. 

Nor was Uranus a pompous, didactic, dry prig. Jupiter could just shut hirs magnetosphere.

Ze was an ice giant and not even remotely dry. Contrary to popular opinion, hirs mantle was an ocean of liquid diamond.

Jupiter's mantle was not made of liquid diamond. Jupiter's mantle was hydrogen. That was not even a noble gas! Some king of the planets. Jupiter's electrons were so unstable they actually moved from molecule to molecule without regard for propriety or just plain decency. Conducting electricity with hydrogen. How common, and not like conduction with ammonia at all!

While Earth, hussy planet teeming with life and spewing lava, as if that was important. Spewing like a pockmarked teenager. It was disgusting. Earth was disgusting.

Uranus was simply a mature planet with precise tastes. When it was summer on hirs southern hemisphere, then ze pointed that hemisphere at the sun as was proper. When it was winter on hirs southern hemisphere, ze rolled that side away from the sun. Properly. With propriety and solemn distinction.

Actually, to hirs shame, ze'd been violently attacked when young by a gang of obstreperous asteroids that had forced ze from hirs axis. Battered hirs moons. The entire experience had been horrific and Uranus was lucky to come out in one piece.

So, no, Uranus was not a featureless sphere. Uranus' name was not funny or a joke about carbon based life-forms' alimentary systems. Ze had depths that none of them would ever understand.

Ze did not care what the other planets thought. Ze did not care.

Except for one. Oh, that one. How ze missed hir.

~~~~~  
Neptune was not… ze was not… ze was… ze couldn't even repeat what they said.

Neptune slowly swung through the solar system. Ze'd heard once that there was a massive black hole at the center of the Milky Way and the thought of falling into that embrace suited hirs mood.

Sometimes, Neptune got depressed. Just wanted to fly apart. The other planets didn't understand. They didn't have hirs weather. Jupiter with hirs red spot storm that might as well be a mountain, it was so stable.

Neptune got black spot storms that remained for months at a time. Winds faster than any other planet in the solar system tearing hir this way and that. Ze hadn't meant to destabilize the Kyper belt. Ze hadn't meant to drag Triton into hirs slow doom. At the time, they'd seemed a good match. An ice giant matched with the coldest rock in the solar system. That had been in the cold dark times, when ze was far from the one ze loved.

Triton had been a disaster. Now they were stuck in some sort of slow implosion. Well, Triton was what with being dragged closer and closer until eventually ze would be ripped apart by Neptune's gravity, which was not Neptune's fault. No matter what Nereid thought, and wasn't that just another romantic mistake. Always erratically moving close and far away. Neptune hadn't meant to stray, but hirs year was a long one and it was cold in space.

No one understood Neptune. How could they? They'd never swung in hirs orbit. Sometimes closer to the Sun than Pluto. Sometimes farther.

Pluto, ha. Pluto understood least of all, what with hirs lovely dovey long term orbital relationship with hirs largest moon, Charon.

Actually, Pluto kind of creeped Neptune out. Dwarf planets. They were so small, and yet they were planets. Then there were clown nebula. Oh, they looked like crabs and horses, but they were really clowns in disguise waiting to make gaseous remains of an unlucky world. Neptune knew it in those dark moments when deep in hirs troposphere dark storms lingered and the sun was far away.

When the one ze longed for was on the far side of the sun.

~~~~~~

It shouldn't have worked.

It wasn't proper. Uranus knew that a planet should form relationships with moons and not other planets, and ze had moons. Dull proper conversations that provided no enlightenment. They sparked no enrichment in hirs existence.

But when Uranus aligned with Neptune, Neptune would form these bright spots in hirs upper atmosphere. Ze would say, "Oh, hey, Uranus. You look. Wonderful. Oh, I've missed you so."

Uranus would spin quietly, trembling with their relative proximity across the vastness of space.

Neptune's tilt, which on other planets was so repellent, added to hirs allure. That tilted differential that heated the methane on Neptune's southern pole, pointing to the sun, releasing the ice into methane gas that reached out to Uranus. Brushed hirs atmosphere in a soft caress.

Uranus own sunward facing pole glowed with the heat of that touch, brightening almost imperceptibly.

Neptune perceived it.

The cores of the dark storms that raged across Neptune's surface would form pale centers and drift over hirs equator and dissipate entirely. 

Uranus the storms of hirs love quiet and understood.

The hot dense fluid of Uranus' ice mantle – oh was a mantle never more poorly named - pulsed with pressure. Electricity arced and jolted deep within Uranus' seemingly serene surface. Almost imperceptible.

Neptune perceived it.

The release of reaching methane gas was stronger then as they came yet closer in their alignment on their slow progress around the sun.

Cloud patterns formed deep within Uranus's atmosphere. Faint patterns, which could only be understood by the only other ice giant in the solar system.

Neptune understood them.

Long bright cirrus clouds raced and fluttered, as Neptune emitted 1.5, no 2, no 2.5, no 2.7 times the energy that ze received from the sun. All for Uranus. 

They looked nothing alike, but beneath such surface things, they were the same.

Their ammonia seas churned each for the other. Conducting electricity in increasing waves. Free ions formed an ionic layer. Their magnetic fields, not tied to any rotational axis, shifted based on these sparks within them. They caressed each other in waves of magnetism. "All for you," cried out Neptune in a rage of wind.

"Oh, Neptune," cried out Uranus in a subtle pattern of clouds.

It was transcendent as within their atmospheres, they sweetly rained diamonds onto the molten diamond seas within them.

There could be no one not affected by this alignment in which the spiritual and the physical conjoined into a perfect harmony. Throughout the solar system, modes of consciousness were realigned into new forms.

Too brief it seemed.

Far too brief a time.

Uranus pulled away on ze's shorter orbit. It would be a long cold time before Uranus would come near hirs beloved again. But Uranus was an ice giant with a stable surface. The only faint dark rings that Uranus wore and would ever carry were for Neptune.

Until they met again, as they always would. "Until next time, my beloved," whispered Uranus into the emptiness of the void.

"Until we meet again, diamond of my mantle," whispered Neptune into the emptiness of the space.

No one could hear them speak. Except, in the effect that their love had on all around them. Comets sighed and asteroids swooned. 

Magnetic waves of love were sent through the cold dark. Until they met again.


	2. [Podfic] Until We Meet Again, Diamond of My Mantle

Length: ll:16  
[Listen to this story](http://fresne.podbean.com/mf/play/83ma79/UntilWeMeetAgainDiamondofMyMantle.mp3)  
[Download this story (right click and save)](http://fresne.podbean.com/mf/web/83ma79/UntilWeMeetAgainDiamondofMyMantle.mp3)

**Author's Note:**

> If after reading my fiction here, you would like to read more about me and my writing check out my profile.


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